Love the Creative Power of the Soul: Chapter 5 – Love as the Revelation of Potential

Though Abraham exhibited selflessness–as when he pleaded for the wicked inhabitants of Sodom and Gemorah and said, “I am but dust and ashes”(Genesis 18:27)–this quality is best represented by Moses. “Now the man Moses was very meek, more so than any other man on the face of the earth” (Numbers 12:3). Countless times Moses displayed his humbleness, encapsulated in his statement relating to himself and Aaron, “and what are we” (Exodus 16:8)? The pinnacle of his selflessness, fueled by his love of Israel, was his willingness to protect the people even at risk to his own life, as when pleading with G-d after the sin of the Golden Calf: “Yet now, if You will forgive their sin [it will be well], but if not, blot me out of your book which You have written” (Exodus 32:32). It was his capacity to reach the level of “nothingness,” the inner aspect of wisdom, that allowed him to be the fitting vessel to bring the Torah, G-d’s Divine wisdom into the world.

A beautiful connection between Abraham and Moses can be found in the initial letters of the phrase ‘Secharcha Harbay Meod,’ “your reward will be very great,” G-d’s assurance to Abraham after saving his nephew Lot from captivity at great danger to his own life (Genesis 15:1). The first letters of these three words form the word “Moshe,” Moses, and hint to the soul of Moses “being born” from Abrahams own level of selflessness.

An additional connection between chochmah and chesed is found in the following verse from the concluding chapter of the book of Proverbs, which praises the Jewish woman and is traditionally sung immediately precedingkiddush of the Friday night Sabbath meal: “She opens her mouth in wisdom and the Torah of lovingkindness is on her tongue (Proverbs 31:26). It is the Jewish woman, in her various roles of mother and homemaker, who finds unlimited opportunities to use her wisdom and kindness in the practicalities of her family life.

Following the activation and drawing down of the soul’s true “something” through an inner state of “nothingness,” chesed can now begin the arduous task of actualizing previously hidden potential in material reality. Abraham’s famous traits of hospitality and generosity represent this last stage of the progression of revealing the essence of the soul, the true “something” in the world. At each of the three stages, love is either the spark, motivation or–at this the last stage–the means through which potential and creativity is harnessed, directed and revealed.